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Title: Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King ISBN: 0-8027-1395-5 Publisher: Walker & Co Pub. Date: January, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.87 (31 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Worthwhile reading even if you're not into the subject.
Comment: I purchased this book because after reading the first few pages, at a bookstore, I was hooked on the narrative. Ross King has written a masterful account of the intrigue, hardships and politics which surrounded the painting of the Sistine Chapel. It is wonderful to read about all the historical people who are involved in this story. I particularly appreciate that Mr. King doesn't show us only the good side of these people, but is willing to show us the bad as well. I think that is what sets this book apart from the typical dry texts on this subject. As concerned, apparently, as Michelangelo was for the painting of the ceiling he also had an extended family which drove him to distraction, and it is information like this which fleshes out the story. And because the people are described as ordinary individuals of complex character, who accomplished extraordinary things, we are given a fuller picture of what life was like at that time. Definitely one of the best books I read in 2003.
Rating: 5
Summary: Finding God in the details
Comment: This wonderful book is as much about life as it is about art. In addition to setting aside misconceptions (the artist bent over backwards rather than worked on his back), King adds all the rich tones and elements of this turbulent and colorful era.
In Michaelangelo's day (the end of the fifteenth and the start of the sixteenth century), Rome was still recovering from years of neglect. Vain and often unscrupulous popes at times advanced Rome and, at other times, took the city a few steps backwards. Ill-gained wealth paid for much of the great art. Proud popes built tombs, churches and cathedrals as memorials to themselves. Michaelangelo's patron, Julius, tried to undo some of the art work of his predecessor, a man who apparently at one time attempted to poison Julius.
As King writes, Rome was populated primarily by priests, pilgrims and prostitutes. As King did admirably in his telling of the story of the construction of Il Duomo in Florence, he again conveys the human element behind the sweat, genius and tumult. Intricate details about producing the most difficult art of the fresco, the daily accounting of the work, the intrigue among the assistants, the papal retinue and the two primary actors (pope and artist) breathe a life into the ceiling that comes to explain if not match the glory of the chapel work. You feel you can smell the animal dung, hear the assistants murmuring near their master, see the wet plaster transforming, and celebrate the triumph of human effort guided by God's hand.
Michaelangelo was petty at times, also often paranoid about his competitors as well as his assistants and patrons. He was also a pius man, a devotee of the rabid monk Savonarola and a man willing to read signs from floods, illness and other natural acts. Much of the time Michaleangelo feared for his life from seen and imagined enemies. The human miracle is how the artist triumphed amidst these real problems. Ross' triumph is in capturing this story in a highly readable, engaging style. Thank you.
Be sure to read this book before you set off on your own pilgrimage to Rome and the Sistine.
Rating: 5
Summary: Highly Entertaining and Informative
Comment: I'd seen this book and BRUNELLESCHI'S DOME in bookstores for quite a while. I just couldn't bring myself to purchase either for a very silly reason. The author's name, Ross King, just didn't sound very authoritative to me, for some reason. More a name for a movie actor than a Rennaissance biographer. As it turns out, that was a baseless bias. King definitely knows his stuff, as the book's bulging bibliography will attest to.
Purists may be put off by the fact that this book is so entertaining, that it can't possibly be serious scholarship. I say let them stick to Jacob Burckhardt, I'll take Ross King, any day. This is a masterly book, and King is an excellent story teller, marshalling his facts and arraying them in taut, controlled prose. His is an excellent overview of the full panoply of figures and events that made late 15th, early 14th c. Italy such an extraordinary place and era. Michelangelo lived in a time that teemed with larger than life figures. The Borgias were still wielding influence in Florence and Rome. Amongst Michelangelo's contemporaries that put in an appearance in the book are the firebrand priest, Girolamo Savonarola, Martin Luther, Machiavelli, and two of the other greatest artists of the Rennaissance, Leonardo and Raphael. The rivalry between Michelangelo and Raphael is one of the keynotes of the book. Raphael and his team of artisans were frescoing the pope's private rooms in the Vatican at the same time Michelangelo was frescoing the massive vault of the Sistine Chapel. Raphael is depicted as an expansive, open-minded, hedonist, good looking and attractive to all. Michelangelo is a "jug-eared, flat-nosed, and rather squat, somewhat miserly loner, who also happened to possess an unparalleled artistic genius.
King is particularly adept at conveying exactly how delicate and painstaking the art frescoing actually was. The artist would have only a brief window of time to apply the precious pigments before the plaster dried. Michelangelo started the project knowing very little about the involved techniques necessary to perform under such a timetable. As the months and years went by, he became so adept that he could paint ever larger sections at breakneck speed. He had to learn his craft on the fly, however, under incredibly difficult conditions.
King dispels a couple myths that have come down to us, primarily via Irving Stone and from the movie version of his novel, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY. It is highly unlikely that Michelangelo had to paint any sections of the ceiling on his back. He did however, have to assume some rather uncomfortable craning postures for hours at a time. It's also evident that the artist didn't work alone on the project. He would hire assistants as the need arose. He definitely didn't mix his own pigments, for instance, a time consuming, exact and laborious task in itself. This in no way diminishes just how Herculean an effort he exerted, however. The sheer physical toll the painting exacted on his body was quite real. His spirit was drained by the enterprise. It was, after all, not a project he was eager to pursue. Had it not been for the overbearing will of Julius II, he would have turned the opportunity down and concentrated instead on sculpture, his first love.
This is a book I recommend without reservation and it goes to the top of my current list of reading suggestions. It's relatively brief at just over 200 pages and will keep anyone with even the slightest appreciation of art and of genius riveted.
BEK
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Title: Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King ISBN: 0142000159 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 30 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall by Christopher Hibbert ISBN: 0688053394 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 02 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance : How Brunelleschi and Ghiberti Changed the Art World by Paul Robert Walker ISBN: 0380977877 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 26 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Ex Libris by Ross King ISBN: 0142000809 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 28 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo by Irving Stone ISBN: 0451171357 Publisher: New American Library Pub. Date: December, 1996 List Price(USD): $8.99 |
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